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Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Janet Oliver displays a mini-dollhouse built around a 'Thomas the Tank-Engine' theme.
Architecture in Miniature
Dollhouses have gone high-tech and tiny
By Kelly Wilkinson
In the dollhouse kingdom, no longer do empty matchboxes pass as beds or bare spools as kitchen tables. The doll world has come of age, insisting on brass hinges that actually work, finely carved mahogany grandfather clocks, sculpted wedding cakes and beautifully upholstered living-room sets.
Dollhouse miniatures are one of the fastest growing hobbies in the country, and next weekend San Jose will host the largest miniature show west of the Mississippi. The show should draw more than 15,000 attendees and will feature a miniature 1957 county fair exhibit as its centerpiece attraction. In addition, there will be artist workshops and over 100 sales tables flogging miniatures ranging from food items to handmade linens to kitchen sinks with copper pipes.
"I used to use toothpaste caps for vases but nowadays I can spend money on enormously elaborate [vases]," says Barbara Jones, chairwoman of the San Jose-based Showcase of Miniatures.
The world of miniatures can be traced back to Egypt, but in this country has been gaining momentum since the 1970s. "It's a quiet hobby," Jones says. "So a lot of people may not know about us."
Janet Oliver, Sunnyvale resident, built her first dollhouse from a kit about 15 years ago.
Oliver's original house expanded to the point where she had to deconstruct it to get it out of the room it was built in. Now she designs houses and individual rooms called "roomboxes" in her garage. She has moved away from her original Victorian leanings, which she calls "too scroll-y," and now prefers Shaker pieces. She also took up designing and building her own furniture when she needs a piece she cannot readily find.
"I love doing it," she says. "I like decorating and you're essentially doing that--only smaller."
One of the more captivating aspects of dollhouse miniatures is its precise scale. The exactitude and strict adherence to proportion--along with the greatly increased quality and detail of miniatures--create authenticity. The photographs in a collectors magazine give little indication that the displayed rooms couldn't have been lifted from an interiors magazine. And though it has become an exact science, Oliver warns that the decrease in scale does not similarly affect the hobby's price tag.
"People think that because it's small, it's cheap," she says. "But it's not. You could spend hundreds of dollars and only walk out of [a store] with a bag big enough to put a sandwich in."
A case in point is Cupertino resident and painter Burt Schmitz, who has downsized his hobby to capitalize on the growing trend. His canvases--some with boats smaller than a fingernail paring--fit into the palm of a hand but fetch between $150 and $250.
"This stuff has really become like jewelry," he says. He paints in enamel on a piece of sheet stretched over a canvas, all of which creates the effect of grand oil paintings shrunken to miniature versions of themselves.
"I don't like big broad paintings or standing at an easel," he says, surrounded by the fine brushes and special magnifying visors he needs to paint in such detail.
But as convincing as the field has become, Schmitz says, he still sees one area that could use some improvement.
"Every [doll] house and building you see is completely empty of any wear or grime."
The Showcase of Miniatures will be held on Oct. 9 and 10 in Parkside Hall at the San Jose Civic Auditorium.
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
